Transmissible spongiform encephalopathy

‘spongey’ nature of neural tissue sometimes caused by the expansion of vacuoles in the neurons of the brain (known as vacuolation). The dead neuron (caused by the prions) alert lysosomes to clear up, however these lysosomes burst and kill other neurons (Cobb, 2009). The harmful Prion proteins gather at the synapses of neurones, stopping them functioning; however the ‘spongey’ changes occur in cisternae of the smooth endoplasmic reticulum, between the axons of neurones, and glial cell processes (Soto, 2011). (©http://microbiologyspring2011.wikispaces.com/+New+Variant+Creutzfeldt+-Jakob+Disease) As you can see in the image above, there is a lot of shrinkage in the brain, and it is a lot less dense; the loss of neural tissue indicates a transmissible spongiform…

Viviana Esteves Biology 1A Lab October 19, 2015 Mad Cow BSE Mad Cow disease is otherwise known as bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE). Bovine means that the disease affects mainly cows and cattle. Spongiform refers to the spongy look of an infected cows brain, prion causes holes and tissues to fold. Encephalopathy is any form of disease to the brain. BSE is found in more in younger cattle and cows. Other forms of BSE are found in humans, cats (feline spongiform encephalopathy), sheeps…

identifying what mad cow disease is Mad Cow disease is known as bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) in the scientific community. It is a transmittable, degenerative, slow growing fatal disease, which affects the central nervous system of adult cow, formed when a cow eats the central nervous tissue of another cow. Human can be affected by eating Beef that fed on food contain Central nervous system tissue, like the brain. When a human contracts this disease, it is called variant…

Hunting is often portrayed purely as a form of sport or the quest for a big trophy. But what most people do not acknowledge is that it does much more for the human population in general. Hunting provides us with the resources that allow us to live comfortably. Not only does it do this, but it provides health to our environment as well as our economy. Hunting large game plays a vital role in the protection of our people, our resources, and the animals themselves. To begin, the killing of large…

Introduction Upper gastrointestinal bleeding can be manifested with hematemesis, melena or hematochezia. Acute bleeding due to gastroesophageal varices in cirrhotic patients is associated with higher morbidity, mortality rates as well as development of life-threatening complications. This bleeding significantly increase protein concentration in the bowel which results in increased ammonia production by colonic bacteria and precipitation of development of hepatic encephalopathy [1].…

Chronic Wasting Disease (CWD), an unusual fatal disease, is classified as a transmissible spongiform encephalopathy (Williams and Young 1980). A transmissible spongiform encephalopathy is distinguishable by a cellular protein prion to a protease isoform, which is abnormal and insoluble (Mathiason et al 2006). The disease was first seen in Colorado captive deer in 1967 (Williams and Young 1980). It is exhibited in several ungulates specifically in family Cervidae such as deer, elk (Williams 2005)…

neurodegenerative diseases are thought to arise as a result of the misfolding of certain proteins, which eventually clump into aggregates as the disease progresses. Prion diseases, also called transmissible spongiform encephalopathies (TSE's) are a group of progressive neurodegenerative conditions. Human prion diseases are fatal neurodegenerative disorders that are characterized by spongiform changes, astrogliosis- an abnormal increase in the number of astrocytes due to the destruction of…

sense. Eventually, the teams discovered they could infect different animals and study them. And with the observation of different diseases like Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, which also did not have a known bacteria or virus. The theory of a slow virus developed to describe an "infectious cause for a genetic disease" (Anderson 139). The theory progressed and eventually led to Gajdusek winning the 1976 Nobel Prize in medicine or physiology. As research continued, it became viewed that there in fact…

The factories and United States Department of Agriculture, USDA, ‘irradiate’ the meat instead of cleaning the factories. Irradiation is meat being subjected to gamma rays, which do not kill the microorganisms, but instead change the DNA. Escherichia coli, E. coli, is considered a main issue. Americans in 2006 panicked; when spinach from California was found to contain E. coli, killing an elderly lady and sickened many others. It was later found that the spinach itself was not to blame, but the…

a history of cannibalism will give insight on how this ritual came to be. While in today’s modern society cannibalism is regarded as sociopathic behavior, in past human history it was attributed as a political form of domination, or “othering,” used to degrade other people. There has been difficulty in uncovering the truths of cannibalism, as most cases are not documented. But researcher Daniel Gajdusek founded Kuru, a fatal nervous disease, caused by eating the human brain. It was found among…